Tom Ewart Smith
AS Spain continues to assess the impact of the nationwide blackout, two window cleaners in Madrid have spoken out about the terrifying moment they were left dangling 200 metres above ground.
Their powered scaffold stopped outside the 53rd floor of a skyscraper, leaving them suspended in the air for hours in sweltering heat, unable to call for help.
Jonathan Bernal and his colleague Ruben had been cleaning the windows of one of the capital’s iconic Cuatro Torres when the outage struck.
Unlike thousands of others trapped in lifts or on public transport, the pair found themselves quite literally left hanging.
“Halfway through the window, my colleague tried pressing the control panel, but realised there was no power,” Jonathan told Codigo 10.
Their emergency protocol, which involved contacting a supervisor to arrange rescue via the building’s maintenance team, quickly fell apart when they discovered their phones had no signal.
With coverage wiped out by the blackout, they were left without any clear way to get help.
“It was distressing and frustrating not knowing how to reach anyone,” Jonathan said.
Fortunately, two women spotted them from inside the building and used their phone screens to communicate through the glass, while Jonathan was able to somehow call his wife and alert her.
Eventually, a colleague inside the building climbed to the 58th floor and managed to lower the platform manually using a lever in the machine room.
“We were really overwhelmed,” Jonathan admitted.
Their ordeal is just one of many emerging from across Spain in the wake of the massive blackout, which left millions without electricity.
In Valladolid, a man became trapped in a lift for five hours after returning from a grocery trip.
Emergency crews eventually had to break through a wall to reach him.
Dramatic footage shared on social media shows firefighters pulling him to safety, to the sound of cheers from relieved bystanders.
Emergency services across the country were stretched thin.
In the Madrid region alone, firefighters carried out 286 rescue operations and freed 174 people stuck in lifts, according to regional authorities.
Public transport was also heavily affected, with trains halted mid-route, traffic jams on major roads, and metro systems suspended in several cities.
Footage has surfaced showing commuters walking through pitch-black tunnels in search of an exit.
While investigations into the cause of the outage continue, it is already being described as one of the most extensive power failures to hit the Iberian Peninsula in decades.
